Wow.. I know nothing.. You must teach me Obiwan. I've dabbled in virtualization very very very briefly and haven't even set up a dedicated machine for VM's. I'd just purchased some very very weak old hardware (just for initial VMware giggles) to get wet in it, so to speak. I'd watched a vew handy brief podcasts that touch WAY WAY too lightly on the subject but get you familiar with SOME of the rudimentary terms. This article was 10x more helpful. Even though it's bascially just a "class overview" type of thing. Now that we have gone over the table of contents I can't wait for the real chapters to begin

I read your article regarding the Hyper-V test lab and thought you might be able to help me with my questions. I am trying to spec out a beefy server class machine that would be able to run windows server 2008 R2, Hyper-V and around 10 to 14 VMs concurrently. From what little I have read, here's what I am thinking would be a good configuration. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

2) Around 8 to 10 or may be 12 (not sure how many come in the new mobos) memory slots - since I plan to start with 16 GB RAM and later move to 32 GB or even 48 GB (a year or so later). Having lesser number slots would mean I would have to use 4 GB modules which are going to be costlier.

3) One 500 GB SATA Drives for the OS

4) Three to five 500 GB SATA Drives in a RAID 0 Array using an on-board RAID controller or an add-on RAID controller.

4A) I am not sure if RAID 0 is something I need to use, because this being a purely test machine (for learning stuff at home by playing around with various products in a VM environment) - super performance is NOT a requirement. I want it to perform well enough so as to not frustrate me and slow me down if I run around 14 VMs concurrently.

5) A good quality video card and two 1 GB NICs.

6) A Server class chassis with a 1000 Watt or 1300 Watt SMPS. Three fans on the chassis for cooling.

NOTE:
====
I am from India and I spoke to a vendor here and he said going in for an AMD six core processor would be better and it would be CHEAPER. I am not sure if he was trying to push AMD or if he was speaking the truth. Your thoughts?

I am sorry about the length of this post and I would deeply appreciate it if you could recommend changes in the spec, and also the right MB model, RAM Model, etc. This is a low priority thing so please respond when you have some time.

"... as an accomplished engineer for a respected national consulting firm. I specialize in enterprise level Directory and Messaging migration design and implementations, and my skill set is expanding into Unified Communications and Virtualization."

Just visited the site after many moons and I gotta say this sounds like some BS to me!

(C) 2005 ProCooling.com If we in some way offend you, insult you or your people, screw your mom, beat up your dad, or poop on your porch... we're sorry... we were probably really drunk... Oh and dont steal our content bitches! Don't give us a reason to pee in your open car window this summer...